Web-literacy - essential for 21st century?

Literacy debate: Online, r u really reading?:

As teenagers' scores on standardized reading tests have declined or stagnated, some argue that the hours spent prowling the Internet are the enemy of reading -- diminishing literacy, wrecking attention spans and destroying a precious common culture that exists only through the reading of books.

But others say the Internet has created a new kind of reading, one that schools and society should not discount. The Web inspires a teenager like Nadia, who might otherwise spend most of her leisure time watching television, to read and write.

As for wrecking attention spans, that's one interpretation of the changes. I find myself increasingly intolerant of being made to wait. If the writer won't get to the point, or at least a point, quickly, then I quit reading and try something else.